Thick Blood
by Longxlive
Summary: The story of Regulus Black before his death. Written for The Quidditch League Competition.


When you live in the Black Family, there are rules every member must follow.

let anyone see you as weak. If you are seen as weak, then you will never be strong enough to fight against the enemy.  
are to be kept. Period.

be wrong. This is slightly difficult when you are a child and really have no indication of what is right and wrong. You will still be punished for it.

is thicker than water. Blood. It matters so much to our family. Maybe it is because we all share more than my parents or aunts and uncles tell us. Personally, I feel like our blood is so thick, it is thin. Maybe when I have to marry my second cousin to keep the Black family line pure, perhaps then, I will understand.

turn your back on the family, or the family elegance. Well, my brother already did that. Being a Black and a Gryffindor. Talk about brave. Not me, I was a coward and never could defy my family. That is why I took my dark mark at sixteen. I knew I could make my parents proud. I was going to be the perfect Slytherin child they always wanted and needed.

My thoughts were so silly when I was a child; I always needed perfection. I was in the Slug club, following in Voldemort's footsteps to become great. Hanging his pictures on my walls, begging my family members for details about him, about Voldemort's life, the missions he sent them out on. In trying to prefect, led to my attempts to become the Dark Lord, himself. I learned his secret. I followed his every step he took at when he was attending Hogwarts, I was attempting to understand his thoughts, and I lost myself along the way. My thoughts, turned blacker than my families hair and name. I learned the secret to power. Gaining this all important knowledge along the way. To worship the Dark Lord, I wanted to crawl into his skin and feel what it was like to be him. I would stand in front of the mirror, imitating his walk, and his soft yet commanding voice. When I was finally called into his inner circle, I knew how he chose how to live forever. I knew I could have the same power as The Dark Lord.

But something had always stopped me in my tracks.

My mother always warned me that seeking power would come at a price.

I wish I would have known that the price would be my life.

Sure, I always had known that Death Eaters found their own demise. That they killed. I remember my first time killing. It was a Muggle man. He had thick brown glasses that covered a twitching eye. We, as in a small group of death eaters at entry level, had brought the Muggle to begging for death with our magic, we used all kinds of treacherous spells and hexes on him,. I remember watching him spasm under me before I killed him. I looked him straight in the eye and I watched the life fade from his eyes when I said "Avada Kedavra," and the spell came in contact with the man's chest.

I know and understand how helpless the Muggle had felt. How being near power comes more death. He calls us his Death Eaters, because we have to swallow all the death he creates.

Someday I hope people wonder about how I died. I know the moment is coming. I just didn't know it would come this fast.  
When you live in an environment like I have, around chaos and rules, the people you have come to trust, simply do not come knocking at the front door wanting to sit down and share a spot of tea. I had to make my dues. My older brother shunned me the moment he became a Gryffindor. All our childhood memories of sneaking rides on brooms when our parents left us for weeks to travel, and our games under the stairs, everything was lost the second Sirius changed the mold of the Noble house of Black.

I found companionship in our house elf, Kreacher. He always listened to all my commands, like any good house elf. Kreature hid my secrets and desires as if they were his own. I would write to him sometimes while at school. I knew my parents wouldn't care about anything other than how much pride I finally showed the Black family name. Kreacher brought me hope. He gave me Christmas presents every year and I would sneak him food and a trinket of some sort he would hide and hold onto when he couldn't hold on to me.

Kreacher, the house elf that would tuck me in at night, or make sure I was fed. He would ladle me my favorite carrot soup when I was sick. He read me bed time stories and stayed in my room when I had nightmares. As I got older, I still embraced our rituals.

Kreature had warned me. He had told me that the path I was taking would drain me so dry, my marrow would be ash.

The pressure consumed me. I was already dead. I walked in the shadows between what was life: people smiling and their faces beacons of hopes and the desire of a mad man: a world run by hate and thin blood.

When the Dark Lord asked to borrow my closest companion, I didn't know what to expect. I wondered if he would see my sympathy or weakness through him.

What the Dark Lord doesn't know is that is where I found my strength. Kreacher gave me the hope and comfort to lead a life of death and destruction. He showed me how to sneak around the house, so no one could hear me. Kreacher, the one thing I have ever loved, came home tormented.

I knew I could live the life I had chosen for myself. I could kill, torture the little children in front of their parents until they begged for death. People could fear me, but they could not use Kreacher.

He attempted to keep his composure when he arrived in the kitchen. He refused to tell me what had happened. He tried to shield me from the darkness I had thrust upon us. I held him in my arms as he cried. I fed him carrot soup and put him in my bed to rest.

He finally told me what Voldemort had done. How he dragged him to a cave, how he finally saw the dark magic I had grown to love. He drank a vile potion to put a locket in a basin. As he told me his story, I knew he had been used to hide a Horcrux.

I told Kreacher to draw a sketch of the locket. He happily obliged.

I drew away from the life I had created. I finally felt the warm of the air on my skin as I slowly drew out my plan. I had the locket made in a Muggle facility in down town London, away from Voldemort's path. I took care of Kreacher, hiding him and giving him small trinkets of mine to keep. He could keep them as mementos of the boy he raise and, not the man who let him be defiled.

When it came to executing my plan, Kreater had become reluctant. I assured him that he would be safe, and that the Dark Lord would be one step closer to death if he helped me.

Kreacher could never say no to me when I smiled at him and gave him a sweet trinket. Kreacher will always live with my memory and believe I had established some form of bravery. I never will know what it is like to openly defy an order. My life is filled with secrets and by Black family rules: Secrets must be kept.

I took the locker in my hands one more time and opened it, placing a note that read:

"To the Dark Lord,

I know I will be dead long before you read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more."  
R.A.B

I know I will finally find the piece I need very soon. Voldemort will have made sure that I would not survive what is ahead of me. Kreacher said the potion made him remember the bad things in his life. I have a lifetime of death to revisit when I go. And I know I have lived when I finally have.


End file.
